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Don’t Mention Epstein in Les Wexner’s Ohio Stomping Grounds

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and registered sex offender facing new charges that he abused and exploited teenage girls.

Don’t Mention Epstein in Les Wexner’s Ohio Stomping Grounds
Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks while standing next to a poster displaying the image of fund manager Jeffrey Epstein during a news conference in New York, U.S. (Photographer: Louis Lanzano/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Not far from the Horseshoe, home stadium of the Ohio State Buckeyes, the name looms in bold white letters: Wexner.

That would be Leslie Wexner, the billionaire behind L Brands Inc. and a man who towers quietly over all of Columbus. His name adorns the colossal brick-and-glass medical center at Ohio State University, his alma mater. His foundation generously endows Jewish community leaders. His money has flowed to the arts, military veterans and more.

Don’t Mention Epstein in Les Wexner’s Ohio Stomping Grounds

But these days, few here seem eager to talk about him. The reason: Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and registered sex offender facing new charges that he abused and exploited teenage girls.

For almost two decades, Epstein served as a personal adviser to Wexner, whose wealth and connections, in turn, enabled Epstein to court the rich and powerful. Wexner distanced himself following Epstein’s arrest on the federal charges last month, but the question still nags: What was Les Wexner thinking?

On Wednesday, the 81-year-old himself fanned the flames, accusing Epstein of misappropriating millions of dollars from him and his family. The betrayal was discovered in 2007, Wexner said, a year after Epstein was arrested in Florida on charges similar to those leveled in New York.

“This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him,’’ Wexner said of the ordeal in a letter he sent to the Wexner Foundation -- his first public remarks about the alleged swindle.

In Columbus, the Epstein affair is big news. But the city seems to have adopted a code of silence when it comes to the disgraced financier’s ties to Wexner, a philanthropist whose invisible hand has guided so much here.

At the High Bank Distillery, just south of the sprawling OSU campus, the conversation abruptly stops when questions are asked about Wexner and Epstein; people wave them away and focus on their beers. Doors are slammed shut in New Albany, the affluent suburb of golf links and cul-de-sacs that Wexner carved out of cornfields northeast of the city.

Paul Burkhardt, an accountant who was involved in Wexner’s development of New Albany, answered his door this week, briefly.

“I don’t want to talk,’’ he said, retreating back inside.

Many people won’t say even that much. Few want to be identified for fear of being associated with the biggest scandal to touch Columbus in years or of crossing Wexner -- the richest person in Ohio, worth $6.6 billion -- who is co-founder of the Columbus Partnership, a civic group comprised of more than 70 area chief executive officers.

As one local businessman said of Wexner: “He owns this town.’’

The L Brands CEO hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. Epstein, who is being held in a New York City jail, has pleaded not guilty.

Close associates of Wexner describe him as down-to-earth, a son of Dayton with the twin obsessions of fashion and philanthropy. He started what was at first called The Limited in 1963, and its first store was in a Columbus suburb.

For someone whose empire includes Victoria’s Secret, his imprint on the Ohio capital is subtle. His name isn’t plastered all over the place.

It’s on campus where Wexner’s generosity is evident. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center was the result of a $100 million donation, the richest in the institution’s history; Wexner has over the years given at least $30 million more to the school. Members of the Buckeyes football team –- the pride of Columbus, with 13 wins and only one loss last season –- work out in an athletic complex that bears the Wexner name. A few blocks away, a modernistic arts center does, too.

Wexner first expressed public regret for his association with Epstein in a July 15 letter to L Brands employees, saying he had been unaware of the “egregious, sickening behavior” of which the financier has been accused. But the two men’s long association continues to spur questions. L Brands has hired a law firm to probe ties between the company and Epstein. Old friends are left shaking their heads.

“He was the nicest, kindest, most generous, most charitable guy I had ever met in my life,” said Jim Duberstein, a real-estate businessman who became friends with Wexner in college and kept in touch with him for a few decades. The Epstein saga just leaves people wondering. “What happened?”

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